A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Reviews of films made in Canada and United States including all films made by Hollywood.
British Films, North American Films
Gavin Hood, “Official Secrets” (2019) As fictional dramatisations of real events go, “Official Secrets” passes muster in its narrative of a translator working for the British…
Arabic-language Films, North American Films
Elan Dassani, Rajeev Dassani, “Seam” (2017) An excellent little film that could serve as a pilot for a television series, “Seam” posits that in the near…
Will Lowell, “Custom Order” (2017) Looks like I hit a dud sci-fi short for once on the DUST channel with Will Lowell’s “Custom Order”. For a…
Andre LeBlanc, “They Watch” (2016) In the near future, a mother and her teenage son living in small-town America are under siege from an oppressive police-state…
Nicholas Camp, Don Thiel III, “Orbit” (2019) A clever re-telling of the classic Edgar Allan Poe short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, this short film explores the…
Andrew Hunt, “Clean Cut” (2015) From DUST, an online channel specialising in screening science fiction films made by up-and-coming film-makers comes this very amusing and cheeky…
British Films, North American Films
Rupert Goold, “Judy” (2019) Adapted from Peter Quilter’s musical stage drama “End of the Rainbow”, this bio-pic covers the last twelve months of Hollywood film legend…
Chinese and Chinese-language Films, North American Films
Lulu Wang, “The Farewell” (2019) As a character study of an individual torn between her parents’ Chinese culture and the Western culture she has grown up…
Victor Alonso-Berbel, “Perfectly Natural” (2018) No aliens, monsters, paranormal events or denizens of Hell or the 25th dimension abound here but this 12-minute short is as…
Bill Tytla, “Little Audrey – Tarts and Flowers” (1950) Part of a series of cartoons about a cute kindergarten-aged girl called … well, what else? ……